


Bird Watching

by shinyeeveelover



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bar Scene, Bird Watching, Leaving, Metaphorical, OC, Original Characters - Freeform, Original Fiction, Original work - Freeform, Other, Questions, The Raven Woman - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 09:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21353851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinyeeveelover/pseuds/shinyeeveelover
Summary: The interaction between the new person in town and the local drunk. Strangers aren't always strangers and everybody crosses into your path for a reason. The Raven Woman might teach this stranger a thing or two about living and why self-destruction isn't the answer
Relationships: strangers - Relationship





	Bird Watching

**Author's Note:**

> TW: hinting of drugs and alcohol abuse

Opening my eyes, I noticed I had wandered into a bar. It smelled like cigars and wood polish; it sounded like games of pool and small talk. Soft chatter disturbed my mind even if this seems to be a place to let go. I let my hands dip into my pockets like my mind fell into possibilities. I felt like the smoke in the air, hiding in plain sight and drifting along. I find a barstool and place myself there.  
“You’re new here,” says the woman next to me.   
She reminded me of a raven. It could have been the way her dark hair was cropped close to her head or the way her darker eyes had scanned me before darting someplace else. Maybe it was her smoke worn voice, but she reminded me of the bird.   
“Am I?” I ask.   
Her voice lacking honey, “I frequent here too much not to notice a new face.”   
“Practically work here?”   
“More liquor from this place has passed through my fingers than that bartender there. All I’m missing is the tips.”   
I couldn’t tell if this Raven Woman was joking with me or being serious. I decide against laughing and order something by pointing at the menu like a child. The bartender didn’t ask for my ID, which surprised me, serving me a fruit colored drink. I regret my random pick and almost want to discard it. I offer it to her instead.   
“Do you think I need another?” her voice still low, still raspy, still harsh.   
I shrug, “Maybe, maybe not.”   
She eyes it with lust. Hatred and lust. I slide it over to her section of the bar. Its awkward bends and tall stature looking alien against her dwarf shot glasses. She eyed me, then the drink, then me again. Watching my shape. Looking for any signs of danger before wrapping her long, narrow, work-worn, callused fingers around the twisting glass. She takes a drink. Swallowing the cold liquid before it warms her belly. Warms her cheeks. Again, I grab the attention of the tender, ordering a whiskey.   
“A drink to match your eyes?” her voice again.   
A rowdy college kid hoots over his friends, barking like a dog because he won this round of pool. I roll my eyes at the blond frat boy. She eyes them. Seeming to be poking fun at me. The lanky bartender slid down my glass. Jack on the rocks. I take it quickly. Let it swish in my throat. Start a fire in my stomach. I wanted to have it slow this place. Slow the time. I wave for another. Take the dive.   
“Slow down, kid. You’ll blackout,” her voice swam in my head.   
I stop after this one, “I know.”   
A cocktail of surprise and confusion filled her expression. She takes another drink from the glass. I notice a smudge of color from her lips left on the edge of the cup, but I couldn't tell exactly what color. A trick of the light maybe.   
“What are you trying to forget, Stranger?”   
I shrug, “Nothing, I suppose. Maybe I’m tired of feeling the false things. Maybe I’m trying to drown out the old with something new. False for foggy, seems more fun don’t you think?”  
She takes from her drink again. Slowly but satisfying. I could almost feel the liquid on my tongue. I wonder if she thought I was a creep. Watching her little ticks and movements, not in an admirable way or out of wanting or lust for her. Watching for the sake of watching. Bird watching this Raven Lady with her ragged voice and wild eyes. With her knobby hands and feather-like hair. With her long nose and narrow colored lips. Watching was different than wanting. My eyes started feeling heavy as I wonder her purpose here.   
“What are you trying to forget?” the words slide from my lips.   
She looked like I had spit in her face. Maybe I had overstepped a boundary? It’s not always appropriate to ask the same question back. Her face turned sour. Something about her made me wish to push her buttons, push her limits. I wanted to know more about her, about why she’s here besides a deadly habit. I wanted to see her dark eyes go misty but, I just got a sour face. I turn away from the Raven Woman and order something else this time. A glass of wine to sip on.   
“White or red?” Asks the caramel-colored bartender, polishing a glass.   
I shrug in response. The boy sighs and just fills the glass with red before putting it in front of me. I feel the woman’s dark eyes on me. Heavy as if they were touching me. Warm like hands instead of eyes. Her eyes felt full. Not like her weathered, knobby, knuckled hands but, almost like a mother’s. I sip my wine, listening to the kids playing pool, letting the bitter taste of the grape roll on my tongue. Breathing in the smoke saturated air, I let my mind fall into the glass with its bitter scent. Wandering through the smoke clouds, down pool sticks but even with this distraction, my tongue craves conversations with the bird of a woman. I feel the alcohol was the key to a leaden tongue.   
I try again, “What are you trying to forget?”   
“What’s it worth to you,” she caws.   
I shrug and hold the neck of my glass, “My time I suppose.”   
The glass was chilled in my hand and when I brought it to my lips, it left them with a mist from warm breaths. The liquid was unwavering, much like the Raven Woman’s expression. Her weighty stare swallowing my confidence. I sip from my liquid courage and bite my tongue. Leashing the dog before I can’t control it. I let my eyes gaze at her now. The Raven couldn't have been more than five feet tall. Her nose was long, a small kink in it seemed to be her most prominent feature. Narrow eyes and thin purple lips. She wore a loose grey t-shirt under a baggy, too-large-for-her-frame, zip-up jacket. Tight black jeans accent her legs and loafers decorate her feet. No rings in her ears, nose, or on her fingers. She pursed her lips and sipped from the glass, leaving a toxic colored kiss on the lip of the cheap crystal.   
In a way, she could have been pretty. Maybe before the sun and liquor and whatever else she may have had weathered her skin. Maybe before smiles, frowns, tears, anger, had eroded the lines in her face. Maybe before years of hard work and struggle freckled her forehead and callused her hands and feet. Maybe before the moke ate her lungs and tore her voice. Maybe, had the years been kinder, she’d be pretty.   
“Are you trying to forget?” I try one last time.   
Her eyes watch, holding mine, “Who doesn’t want to forget in one way or another?”  
“I suppose you’re right.”   
A yellowed tooth bites her purpled lips, “You wanted to replace the same with something new. Isn’t that forgetting?”   
“More numbing than that.”   
“Numbing is just forgetting a feeling.”   
I nod, “Then are you forgetting a feeling?”   
“Maybe the ghost of one.”   
“Would talking to an unfamiliar ear help?”  
The Raven shrugs it off. She drinks from the glass, hesitating she puts it down before quickly picking it back up and giving in to her craving, almost killing it in a gulp. I watch the remains lap against the bottom when she puts her glass down. Its unnatural blue color seems to stain the cup with an acidic looking shade. I notice the way her knobby hands wrap around the warped glass. He weathered hands seemed leathery. Boney, awkwardly kinked, scabbed, callused, almost like a raven’s feet.   
“Can I have a name?” I wonder aloud.   
“Ruins the idea of strangers don’t you think?”   
“Strangers at a bar? The new guy stumbles in asking questions to the locals. Sounds like a bad Western, don’t you think?”   
“Information is worth something.”   
“What’s it worth to you?”   
“My time,” I reply, “I’m selfish with it.”   
She smirks, “Funny way to spend it.”   
“Funny to drink yours away.”   
“Not always as valuable to some.”   
“But always an investment.”   
She nods in agreement, “This is an investment?”   
“Maybe, maybe not.”   
I eye the tender, his dusty blond hair covering green eyes, accented by his caramel skin. He stood out against the white upper-class college boys causing a ruckus in the corner. I could smell their privilege through the smoke by the cologne they wore. Part of me wished to be like them. To taste scotch or jack or even wine on new, younger palets. On rich tongues, sliver with money. To be somebody in a group of rowdy friends rather than the nobody among strangers. Nobody in a new town. The unfamiliar face in a local bar, sitting with the town drunk. I catch the attention of the young tender, in his green apron, and order another round of whiskey. I don’t know what made me want to drown out the thoughts with jack and waves of neon lights but, something did.   
“I thought you said you’d stop with that?” her voice cawed at me.   
“Maybe I am drinking to forget.”  
She smiled. IT was this crooked tooth, pull back of purple curtain smile. Showing teeth eroded by years of tequila and neglect through velvety royal purple lines. Broken teeth through a cracked smile. There was nothing lovely about it but, I seemed to like it, to understand it. It was weird to understand a smile, it probably wasn’t the smile I understood. Maybe it’s the yellowed pages of history in those teeth that I understood.   
“What’s it gonna take for me to earn a name?” her voice scratches my ears.   
“Time, I suppose. Strangers don’t usually give out their names. Ruins the point.”   
Again she showed me her awful smile, but this time I smile back. Just a small smile, something to hold her over, satisfy anything she may have wanted. She let out a satisfied coo and ordered something from the young tender. Instead of taking it for herself she slides it to me. A white fruit smelling thing, probably something with coconut. This glass was similar to my wine glass, a long lanky neck with a narrow foot and a pool of white swirling liquid.   
I notice her long black nails as she sends the glass to my shot glass graveyard by its neck. They wouldn’t have been as curved if her weathered hands were actually working fingers. They were a shiny, manicured set, filed into a small point. The more I learn from watching the more I see a raven and less a woman.   
“For me?” I sounded more surprised than I did confused.   
“For you. A payment of sorts for this one,” she toyed at the edge of the glass I’d given her.   
I took my shot and felt it burn my throat before I could taste it, “Thank you, Miss…?”  
“Nice try, Stranger. I said no names.”   
“You asked if you could have mine.”   
“And you told me with time so you should have to pay that price too.”   
I feel the heat rise to my cheeks and a smirk form on my lips, “You’re not wrong. Only fair. Did you get your fix? Is this why you offer me a drink?”   
“No,” She didn’t seem offended as most would be, “it’s an invitation of sorts. Share words, and drinks and stories. Earn the names. But, by the looks of you, you might never be back here.”   
I shrug, “I might.”   
“Funny way to spend your time.”   
“Funny to drink yours away.”   
“Back to this, I see.”   
I snicker at that comment. Not because it was necessarily funny. I think the liquor does that, makes you braver, makes you think everything is funny. My mind grows foggy, thoughts become blurry, walls soften. I forget why I didn’t let loose a bit sooner. I sip from the drink the Raven Woman had bought me. The tang of some sort of fruity drink mix before the fire of alcohol. I don’t know which one I had tasted more. I don’t know if I cared. The smoke drifted in front of my eyes in lazy half loops, from one end of this neon saturated bar to the other. The cracking of pool sticks created something from a movie, but it could have just felt this way to my drunken mind. She had fished for something in her pocket before I had noticed she’d even switched her position. The Raven Woman was perched on her stool facing the door instead of the bar. She plucked a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket. It had been years since I’d stopped, but my body lusted for one. For the bitter taste against the liquor. Something to lighten my drunken heavy mind. I almost remembered the bite it held against the back of my throat.   
She must have noticed my eyes, “Want one?”   
“I shouldn’t.”   
“Neither should I.”   
I took one when she offered me the pack anyway. Holding it clumsy in my hands. I hold it to my lips and suck in, lighting it. Taking in the bitter burn, I cough out grey clouds into the already tainted air.   
“First time, Stranger?” She caws.   
“You can say that,” I reply.   
She chuckles at me in her worn, hoarse voice, “Shouldn’t let these take all your life. Time should be invested, as you’ve told me.”   
“If I’ve stopped once, I can stop again.”   
“Information is valuable, Stranger.”   
“Not this bit.”   
“Maybe, maybe not,” she mimicked chucking again, “Don’t let me be all your firsts.”   
“You won’t.”   
“I will be if you keep smoking now.”  
“You think so?”   
She nods, “I know so. You’ll crave them after food, when you wake up, after sex. There is something magic about a cigarette after sex. You could miss events because you need to smoke.”   
I smirk something sharp, like a blade, “I remember the vivid of the tastes after sex. Even if it was bitter, they tasted better.”   
“You’ll think of this every moment you go out for a smoke. Here, in this bar, this very conversation even, you’ll think of me, curse my face even, since you don’t have a name to curse.”   
“So, I’m not getting a name?”   
“No,” She pauses, “I suppose you won’t.”   
She stands from her perch, leaving me with a half-smoked cigarette and the litter of empty glasses. As she left, she had tied her jacket around her waist, exposing long narrow arms, freckled with pin-prick scars. I knew what they were. Their places on the inside bend of the arm, needles meeting veins and foreign chemicals greeting, killing, cells. Destroying things. I’d like to pretend it’s from plucking feathers from her arms, but even my drunken mind knows that’s not true. I debate going after her, and debate staying here. The drunken mosh posh of my mind thought staying and forgetting the Raven Woman was the better idea of the two. The mistery hungry part of my mind called out for her, to ask her questions, to earn her time and her name. Instead, I follow the sober bits and put the cigarette out on the bar. The kid behind it glared with disapproval before sighing and cleaning up our glasses.   
After watching him work, I finally ask, “Did she pay?”   
“No,” replies his soft untarnished voice, “but, she will tomorrow.”   
“I’ll cover both tabs,” I respond meeting his eyes.   
His expression looked lost, “You didn’t have too much to drink, did you?”   
“Maybe, maybe not, but I’m sober in this choice.”   
“You’re not trying to impress her, are you?”   
“No,” I answer softly, “just trying not to become something I don’t want to be.”   
“Can I have a name to tell her?”   
“Stranger.”   
I pay the tab, tipping the bar boy generously for his troubles. I step out into the night air of the city. Tomorrow, she will come back and he will tell her a stranger paid for her tab. Maybe she will remember me. Maybe she will remember never getting my name and when she does, I hope she remembers her conversation with me, the stranger, the new face at the bar. I hope she remembers this. Feeling the woosh of cars as they drive too fast past me. Keeping my eyes open this time, I follow the sidewalk back to my tiny studio apartment. Opening my window, the night air floods in, cooling my face and running out the stuffy air. As I sit on my fire escape, I throw my last pack of cigarettes down into the dark ally below me. I take out my phone and marked this date in my calendar, a reminder, and the anniversary of meeting the Raven Woman. A reminder to not forget the small things. A reminder to go bird watching.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading feel free to leave feedback in the comments


End file.
